This is not OK

This is not OK. Most of the time I don’t blog about the news. But once in a while headlines converge and words just need to be said.

This week has been horrendous.

It is the brutal murder of a black man in custody by a police man and then the subsequent words and actions of the US President that have utterly horrified me. Events that bring to a head so many more deaths, so many more shootings.

And on top of that is this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/trump-george-floyd-protests-military-deploy

This is not OK

This is blasphemy. There is a God who in heaven who created all people in his image. All people. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, all people.

A God who loved this world so much that he was willing to step down and become one of us to die for all people.

A God who knows what it is to suffer from brutality.

A God who holds justice and righteousness in the highest regard.

A God who tell his people not to condemn the innocent, and not to acquit the guilty.

A God who calls on the powerful to use their power for justice and righteousness.

And so, outside a place where this God is worshiped, and holding the word of this God in his hands, stands the President of the USA.

The President who has just ordered peaceful protestors to be tear gassed and shot at with rubber bullets so that he can stand there.

That is not OK.

The President who has just told states that if they don’t get tough on protests he will send in the army.

This is not OK.

The situation demands from those in power an anger about the injustice suffered by this black man and thousands of others that leads to a root and branch reform of the police.

It demands that they say “Enough. We will do whatever it takes to restore justice in our law enforcement.”

But instead we get a president who clears protestors with rubber bullets and with tear gas, just so that he can pose with a Bible in front of a place where God’s people gather before he threatens to pour more flames on an already charged situation by sending in the army.

As someone who loves the Bible, and who loves God’s people I want to say loud and clear. That is not OK.

And sadly it is what brutal tyrants have done throughout history. They have wrapped themselves in their nations flags and in pious words as cloaks for evil deeds.

And it is not OK.

My prayer in all this is that Christians in places of power would have integrity. That more would speak up, and that someone would be willing to say “no” to the President – as someone who has understood that the US have a constitution to protect them from tyranny, current events look very worrying indeed.

My prayer is that Christians in the UK would take this as a warning. The day may come soon where some of us will need to say ‘no’ to those in authority. When we will have to stand firm and resist. When we will have to speak.

Father – make us ready.
Help us stand for justice
Help us be wise in how we live
Bring peace – not simply an absence of hostility
But real peace – your shalom – wholeness, restoration and life
Help us know when to speak
And give us courage to speak

Here is a prayer by German pastor Martin Niemöller, a member of the confessing church in the 1930s opposed to Adolf Hitler who realised his mistake in initially approving (as did many Christians in Germany) of Hitler’s initial rise because he would save the country from communism.

It is set to music here:

Here are the words:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me